Status changes can make us feel very different about life. You may recall your first days as a parent or in a new role in a company or perhaps serving in a local church. You are the same person as you always have been, but now your role or label means that certain things are expected of you, and you expect certain things of yourself. 

At the start of chapter 9, Jesus gives the disciples power and authority to drive out demons, to cure diseases and to proclaim the kingdom of God. Things have been going very well. But when they go to a Samaritan village, things are not so smooth – the disciples are not welcomed. James and John, nicknamed ‘sons of Thunder’, ask Jesus if He wishes them to call fire down from heaven to destroy the village! 

Some Christians use a plan for reading through the Scriptures in a year (the New Testament and Psalms twice and the Old Testament once). This method was devised by the Scottish pastor Robert Murray McCheyne, who ministered largely in Dundee, Scotland. 

Thinking about the human ability to terminate life in the womb has made today’s passage especially poignant. Of course, there are difficult questions surrounding medical ethics. These debates require careful thought and pastoral understanding. 

We can be utterly secure in knowing God’s presence with us. We can be at one with the psalmist when he talks of God being near, watching over and caring for us. And then something happens and it’s as if a storm cloud has gathered over us and is showering its ugly contents! 

In the early years of childhood, there is considerable comfort received by a child who knows their parent is watching over them. Indeed, the child will often make sure that the parent is watching something they are proud of, such as kicking a football, playing a game, or dancing. 

Doing the right thing can become a habit not always appreciated by others. The young man who refused to defile himself with the king’s food is now an experienced civil servant within the king’s palace, possibly in his early eighties! Indeed, by chapter 6 verse 3 we find the king plans to set him over the whole kingdom. 

It would seem that Daniel was a first-class honours kind of guy. For this reason, he had been deported from Israel and taken thousands of miles away to Babylon to serve in the king’s palace for a three-year training course. 

The New Testament really does have some astonishing verses, and this one is right up there with the best. The writer to the Hebrews is contrasting the sacrifice of Jesus with the sacrifices prescribed within the old covenant. 

There are definitely two kinds of Christian. There are those who have a very high trust in the sovereignty of God and His work in their lives. There are those who have a strong sense of responsibility to do things to please God.